Chris O’Carroll

Ode to Old Age

I walk into a room and suddenly
I’m at a loss. What did I want in here?
That puckish brain-tweaker, reality,
Has learned to shift its shape or disappear.
I used to have to smoke expensive weed
To tune in to this zoned-out paradigm.
Today my skull packs all the buzz I need.
I’m high on failing cells and passing time.

Each friend or relative that I outlive
Is one less witness to my foolish youth.
Now any version of the past I give
Is more or less the undisputed truth.
What names and numbers I may have forgotten
Are obligations I’ve been glad to shed.
Untangled from the past I once was caught in,
I rest in peace before I’m even dead.

Chris O’Carroll writes: “When my late mother was in her early 80s, and could still notice and comment on the progress of her dementia, “losing my marbles” was her term of choice for the experience. I gave some thought to titling this poem “Ode to Lost Marbles” in her honor. Laughter can’t make decline and death any less terrible, but it sure does make life more fun in the meantime.”

Chris O’Carroll is the author of The Joke’s on Me (White Violet Press, 2019).  He has been Light magazine’s featured poet, and his poems have appeared in Literary Review, The New Statesman, The Spectator, Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle, and The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology. “Ode to Old Age” was originally published in Light.